A view of the cemetery where the graves of the soldiers who lost their lives in the Russia-Ukraine war are located as daily life continues in shadow of war in Kursk, Russia on August 18, 2024. (Photo by Vladimir Aleksandrov/Anadolu via Getty Images)

(L-R) A man nicknamed "Barcelona", Alexey Bolotov and Alexey Jakushin drink vodka as they travel by a pioneer motorised railcar on their way to Kalach, Sverdlovsk region, Russia October 18, 2015. The "pioneer," a light auxiliary rail vehicle, is a popular form of transport among people who live along the Alapayevsk railway. In a remote corner of the Urals region at the end of a narrow-gauge railway is Kalach, population about a dozen. Three decades ago 600 people called the village home, but the local forestry industry suffered as the former Soviet Union imploded and people moved away in search of work. In Kalach today there are no telephones, no mobile reception and only a few hours of electricity a day. (Photo by Maxim Zmeyev/Reuters)

An instructor guides a student from the General Yermolov Cadet School as she aims with a gun during a field exercise outside the south Russian city of Stavropol January 24, 2015. The General Yermolov Cadet School in Stavropol is a state-run institution that teaches military and patriotic classes in addition to a normal syllabus. (Photo by Eduard Korniyenko/Reuters)

A cat jumps from a shelf to catch a light beam at the “Kis-Kis” Cat Cafe in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia, July 6, 2015. A local animals rights group founded the shelter for dozen of homeless cats and combined it with the cafe, where visitors can communicate with animals for hourly fee in addition to drinks, table games, books and WI-FI. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

Participants of an unauthorized opposition rally gather in Tverskaya street in central Moscow on June 12, 2017. Authorities detained Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny and hundreds of his supporters on Monday, as they mounted demonstrations across the nation against government corruption. Over 200 were detained in Moscow and Saint Petersburg an hour into the protest, according to an NGO that tracks arrests, with Navalny himself picked up by police in his building as he was headed to the event. (Photo by Vasily Maximov/AFP Photo)

In this photo taken Sunday, May 6, 2012, Denis Lutskevich, left, is detained by police during an opposition rally in Bolotnaya Square in Moscow. The former naval cadet and first-year student, 21-year-old Lutskevich was attending his first protest when he was detained, and is still in prison Monday May 6, 2013, on the first year anniversary of the protest. (Photo by Pavel Golovkin/AP Photo)

Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny (C), reacts as the court delivers the verdict in his trial, in the city of Kirov, Russia, 18 July 2013. Alexei Navalny was sentenced to five years in jail for theft on Thursday, an unexpectedly tough punishment which supporters said proved President Vladimir Putin was a dictator ruling by repression. (Photo by Valentina Svistunova/EPA)

Activists stage a theatrical play where gay people are restrained by others wearing masks depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin, during a protest against Russia's new law on gays, in central London, Saturday, August 10, 2013. Hundreds of protesters, called for the Winter 2014 Olympic Games to be taken away from Sochi, Russia, because of a new Russian law that bans “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” and imposes fines on those holding gay pride rallies. (Photo by Lefteris Pitarakis/AP Photo)